


Glimmer of Hope

by dasakuryo



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Cassian Andor-centric, Gen, Implied Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Implied Relationships, Minor Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-24 20:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12020118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasakuryo/pseuds/dasakuryo
Summary: All he has ever had is hope. All that he's been and all that he has, even now, even here at the end of all things.





	Glimmer of Hope

_All he has ever had is hope._

Hope has been his compass. Even long before joining the Alliance. He has been harbouring hope in his chest from the time when his fingers gripped rocks, from the time he tossed them to the figures cloaked in white duraplast whose trudge had a scaring scrunch on the snow. He has been harbouring hope since the plasma colours shone, alien and bright, amidst the whiteness of Fest.  

The hope he's always cling to it's not naïve.

It's a hope that burns quietly, and slowly, but searing. Hope that knows of waiting and sacrifice, hope birthed in the horror of loss and pain and tears. A hope threaded together with the shards of a broken soul.

A hope that makes him stagger and tremble to his feet. A hope that curls his fingers around the durasteel. A hope that has its feet trudging and stomping, step after step after step. A hope that sucks in air over the stabbing pain. An unwavering hope that knows nothing of the pain fogging his mind. A hope that knows nothing of the cracks running through his insides, just like blizzards don't care about ice breaking rocks apart. 

_Why do we fight?_

_So others don't have to._

_So our home can be free._

The voice is but an echo in his mind, and still gives him the strength to stumble inside the elevator. It's his elbow what meets the key. 

The air is heavy, so heavy that he can't breathe it. It gets stuck, and no matter how deep he tries to inhale it does not reach his lungs. He tries swallowing, and the sweet coppery tang overwhelms his tongue. His hand clutches his side, his eyes flutter shut. He grips his waist, right above his hipbone. He takes another deep breath, ends up being nothing but another futile effort because a weak whiff is what reaches his lungs.

Shaking fingers find the handle of his blaster. Something dark drums in his chest; the emotion curls his fingers around the steel. The rage makes his blood run thicker in his veins. The lift screeches in its ascent.

He can't let him take it, he can't let that vile monster snatch that hope from the galaxy. He can't let that happen, not when that man stole freedom, not when that man was behind the terror, not when that mind had obliterated Jedha, not when the terror can be stopped. 

He needs to keep going.

He can't give up now.

(He can't let him extinguish her fire either, he won't let him take that light away from her, after all he'd already robbed her off.)

 

When he shoots Krennic, he feels something. Not regret, like when the plasma shot found Tivik. There's a different flutter in his chest, it beats too quickly, seems to take the little air he manages to breathe in out of his lungs.

He thinks its joy.

A smile tugs at his lips when he meets Jyn's gaze. The Alliance is getting the transmission, and every knot inside him seems to unravel. Suddenly the pain becomes a ghostly touch, something distant.

When she smiles, brightly, at him—

Perhaps... maybe...

_"Do you think anyone is listening?"_

Hope. It feels like the plea of a _child_. Hopeful, as his gaze searches the sky. The child and the innocence this war murdered all those years ago sprouts to the surface in his quivering, laboured voice.

_"Someone's out there."_

She smiles, helps him walk, supports his weight on her in spite of her own stagger and ache. His lips curl into a smile.

He can barely see her, in the darkness of the elevator. The glee of victory is fading; the pain comes back, clawing and piercing. She looks at him, maybe he looks at her first —he can't really tell.

He feels the same pull from the hangar. The faint noises of the battle barely reach him. What he does hear, almost deafening, it's the sound of their own uneven breathings. 

Hope.

Isn't it ironic? That he has spent so many years paving the path of hope for others to tread on, but he has never walked it himself? Isn't it ironic that he hasn't hold hope close for himself?

Hopeful while being hopeless within.

Hope.

How much does hope weight? The heaviness in his chest as the darkness curled around its battered soul, is that hope's weight? Or is it light, like glee, like joy? Like this sudden flutter in his chest, shrouded by shadows.

Hope.

Does hope have a colour?

Hope is bright, that much he is sure but—

Can it be green? _Is hope green?_ Is it green like the colour that flickers through his half-lidded eyes? Like the shades he sees sparkling in the dark when his body goes forward? 

_Is hope warm?_

Is this what hope feels like when holding it close to your heart? Is this what hope feels like when your feet trudge on its path rather than only letting your hands make it? Is it heartbeats beating in your ears, a plea, a promise warm on, _in_ , one's mouth? 

_Can one's own hope be a person?_

There wasn't the time— there wasn't the time for him to _find out_.

He takes her hand. He holds her. 

He hugs her, as if with that hug alone, with his fingers gripping her shoulder and his face buried in the crook of her neck, he can make up for all the years ahead of them that the blinding light in the horizon will burn to dust.

He has clung to hope for years to keep going. He has given the galaxy everything he could. A promise of freedom—

Perhaps it's fitting then. Perhaps it's fitting that in his last heartbeats he gets to cling to the promise of his own hope. Perhaps it's fitting then, that in the last moments of his life, when everything is said and done— 

Feel that hopeful future surrounding him—

However ephemeral its life is.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no explanation for this other than I am trying to cope with the canon ending (even though we all know that if Darth Maul could come back after _being cut in half just to make Obi-Wan's life a nightmare_ , then Rogue One could have survived Scarif). I don't know whether to say hope you've enjoyed because I am in denial about this still and the ending breaks my heart so... yeah, let's not use the verb enjoy. Still, thanks for reading! :)


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